Perspective of a Shadow
by OddballPunk
Summary: An introspective look by Shadow at his beginnings leading up to the fall of ARC.


-Perspective of a Shadow-

My life began in a containment tube. Where, after much manipulation and research by my various creators, I came into being. I was not born because one could not consider my development and eventual awakening a birth. I soon learned the purpose I was designed for. I was brought into being to destroy those who stood against my creators. Destruction and the knowledge of its methods became my truth as I was raised in a sterile environment. I never once questioned the truth of this knowledge as it was presented to me. In a way, one could say that I was complete. I knew and understood the purpose to my design. I was complete until I learned another more gentle truth that existed in this world.

Known simply by the designation of Project 1-02, it was Professor Gerald Robotnik that was the central driving force behind my creation. His word was law on the Space Colony ARK until his superiors stepped forth to claim me as their weapon. He was responsible for my development into that weapon. I had heard during my earlier days of life that there had been a proto-type to my design; however, the proto-type had failed thus Professor Gerald, as he preferred to be addressed, was called up to the ARK to rework the design that now stood as me. With his arrival though, he brought change to the completely sterile steel environment of the ARK.

I did not have personal knowledge of what the ARK had been like without its huge central atrium. I was scheduled, however, to a certain time every day to this enclosure that I had been told mimicked the natural environment on the world outside of ARK. Professor Gerald had ordered the atrium's construction as well as my time there. He had surmised that the proto-type had failed because it had been raised in a strict science-driven environment. It had not, he stated, been given the chance to grow as it learned; this lack of growth during the learning process was the main cause for the proto-type's failure. So the professor took it upon himself and against the wishes of the others, to educate me in matters that did not revolve around my purpose of destruction. He had waited until after I fully understood my purpose, however, so there would be no need to fear that I might become "poisoned" by this new education that some on ARK had decreed as unnecessary and even thought harmful.

But this new knowledge was proven to be as un-harmful as Professor Gerald had first claimed it to be. In fact, the research done on my growth after I began the professor's new education program showed that it was having a very positive effect to the ends that my creators where seeking. And so my world continued on in its own sterile way. I did not challenge my purpose or creators. I knew nothing more than I was allowed to know. This was my life, my normality until Professor Gerald made a decision that would affect every life upon ARK, including my own.

I must admit that when I heard the news I was against it because some of my creators where against it. Professor Gerald argued that it would give me the opportunity to learn how to correctly communicate with people who were not driven by science. Most of Professor Gerald's fellow scientists where swayed by the assessment as the period of time would only be a month at most; however, there were those who saw it as another chance for the contamination of their Project 1-02 that they had worked so hard to train and perfect.

The thing that these few feared would contaminate me was the arrival and joining to the ARK community of Professor Gerald's granddaughter, Maria Robotnik. I was later briefed after the decision had been finalized that Maria had developed an illness that made living on the world impossible. In fact, she would not survive much longer unless she was removed from her current environment. And Professor Gerald's position on ARK and love for his granddaughter allowed him to bring the child to the type of environment that would help her survive to see a possible cure for her illness. It was not her arrival and placement into the ARK community that worried some of the scientists, but the fact that the professor wanted to use me as her companion for the first month of her stay so that she might acquaint herself to ARK more readily.

Though it embarrasses me even now to admit, my appearance was and is that of a fluffy animal despite my education to destruction. It was Professor Gerald's hope that this fluffy, non-threatening appearance would remind the child of a favored stuffed animal she had to leave behind. The professor believed that if Maria felt comforted by this resemblance then she would grow accustomed to life on ARK. And despite my pride being slightly wounded with the comparison, I agreed with Professor Gerald's wish that I help guide Maria into the community of ARK.

On the day of her arrival, I was told to wait in the atrium until Maria was brought to meet me by her grandfather. The atrium was seen as the closest thing to a natural environment on the ARK. It would be most relaxing and non-threatening to the child who would not be used to a steel environment. Professor Gerald would explain the situation and me to his granddaughter to the point that she would not be frightened of meeting me.

As I stood by a small pool, I experienced a bit of apprehension before our meeting. It would be, after all, the first time I had seen a real human child in the flesh and not on some display screen or in some book. As a strange habit during my early education, I would journey alone to the observation deck and stare at the world below ARK. My own image would be reflected back to me surrounded by the world. It was this strange habit that had helped me to understand the knowledge of my design and purpose. In a strange way, I found comfort in the act of fixating my gaze on one spot for hours at a time even if it was only to stare with no other purpose but to stare. I suppose it could have been considered a form of meditation.

As I stared into the pool at my own reflection, I heard a soft whoosh as the doors to the atrium opened. I could hear the professor's step followed by a swifter and slightly stumbling gait of a young child. The professor had warned me to do nothing that would frighten Maria because she was very delicate. I had at that point connected her with a lily that needed to be guarded against the cold. I would later find that she had a tenacious tendency about her that evoked images of a tiger lily. I heard Professor Gerald clear his throat and turned about to see the child who would be responsible for a major change within me.

I could not keep the smile from my face as my eyes caught sight of Maria for the first time. Her stature was smaller than mine. The top of her golden ringed head barely reached my chest. Her bright blue eyes were large as they stared into my amused crimson eyes. Her voice was light and airy as she asked her grandfather who I was. Her small pale hand tugged at the edge of his white lab coat as she stared at me.

Professor Gerald had pushed her forward and told her to ask me herself. The child had seemed shy but shook herself and approached me. She offered a polite half curtsey. I nodded my head slightly and offered a friendly enough smile.

"So you are going to be my shadow?"

I had blinked. It was not the question I had expected. "Yes."

"Oh okay." She paused for a long period of time and watched me intently. Her blue eyes shifted from my face to her sandaled feet which kicked at the ground from time to time. "I'm Maria." She interlaced her fingers in front of her waiting expectantly. When I did not respond to her unasked question, she stamped her little foot and glared at me as if I was the one being rude. "What's your name?"

She was going to be a stubborn one. I had an urge to grin at her but thought it was best not to. "I am known as Project 1-02." She only blinked at me. "It is ni-"

"That's not a real name!" she had tactlessly declared. Professor Gerald cleared his throat but did not intervene because he wanted only to observe that first meeting. "What's your real name?" Without really knowing, she had adopted a fighter's stance of challenge.

"Project 1-02 is my designation."

She stomped her little foot again and crossed her arms. "That is not a name." She pouted, but then a thoughtful expression crossed her face. "I can name him?" She had whirled around to her grandfather who looked slightly surprised. He only nodded once. She giggled and circled around me as if to appraise me somehow.

I had thought to scold her about her rudeness but remembered I would only have to deal with her for a month. If she wanted to know me by some other designation that was fine by me.

"Shadow!" She wrapped her tiny arms around my waist.

"Wha-What?" I tried to back out of the unexpected hug when I had heard Professor Gerald cover his chuckle with a cough.

"It's your name silly. Your name is going to be Shadow, Shadow." She stepped back and smiled up at me perhaps waiting for me to thank her for the name.

"Shadow?" I narrowed my eyes but said nothing more. It was better than Fluffy or Spot I suppose.

"Yes, Shadow because Grandpa said you was suppose 'to shadow me' around the ARK, and you are colored like a shadow." She giggled at her own insightful joke. I could only sigh patiently.

I had offered her my hand which she had taken and swung gently back and forth. I wondered if Professor Gerald told her I wasn't a plaything or a playmate for that matter. I looked at her sparkling blue eyes and smiled with her. This was going to be a long month.

But despite my early misgivings, the month sped by. Maria and I had grown very close. When I was not at my own studies and preparations and she was not at her class work, she would be right behind me. I had jokingly said that maybe we should call her "Shadow" instead of me, but she had giggled and called me a "silly hedgie" which was another nickname for me I suppose, only she ever used that name. It was my other name, Shadow, that caught on with all the resident scientists of ARK. And by the end of the first week, my given designation when addressing me directly or indirectly on ARK went from Project 1-02 to Shadow. I slowly accustomed myself to the new name as no one would call me anything else.

That was not the only change I went through that first month on the ARK with Maria there. I had understood my role to be a destroyer. That was what I had been designed for. But as I spent more and more time with Maria, a new purpose blossomed in my heart, in my mind. I wanted to protect Maria. I knew Professor Gerald noted this change but never said anything as I tried to hide it from the others. I was unable to hide it from him because he knew me better than anyone, even better than I knew myself most of the time.

And as the month had finally passed by, I found myself wishing that I had had longer with Maria, but that was not the way things had been scheduled. Yet when I said good night to her that last night, I began to wonder if the way things had been were going to be okay anymore. When I had woken up the next morning though, I found her waiting beside the closed door to my quarters so that we could go to breakfast together like we had since her arrival on the ARK. It was a bit strange because I was the one who was usually waiting outside of her quarters as I woke before she did. That strangeness and her sorrowful look made me pause.

"What's wrong, Maria?" I had knelt down and patted her shoulder when I saw her lower lip tremble. A sign she was truly unhappy.

She looked up at me with a pleading expression. "You don't want to be my friend no more?" Tears touched the edges of her blue eyes.

Apparently, Professor Gerald, or another scientist most likely, had told her that yesterday was the last day we would be spending together. She did not want our friendship to end. I wanted to hug her tightly and say that it was not true whatever she had been told about me not being able to be near her any more, but I didn't. I only stood and shook my head. Those scientists had been right about their warnings that I would change; however, it was not a contamination. I was awakening up to what was really going on.

I spoke the words I no longer wanted to, "I am sorry, Maria, but I was only scheduled to" I heard small feet running off. I forced myself not to go after her. I could have easily caught her. I steeled myself even more when I heard a child's cry of sorrow echo back to me. I bit my lip until it bled.

She is only a young child, I told myself. She cannot understand these things that are for adults. I am after all only a-Tears had touched the edges of my own eyes, but they did not spill. I am only a killer as I was designed to be. I walked in the opposite direction to the observation deck. A place I had not seen in the last month. I needed the time to make myself believe my old truths. Truths? I had known then that what I had known as truth was nothing but a bitter lie.

I did not see Maria for the span of two weeks. Every time someone began to speak of her, I left the area. I only knew then that she had become ill and had not gotten any better no matter what anyone did. This news, even though I tried hard not to let it, began to affect my performance and evaluations. I began to purposefully miss those in order to stay on the observation deck. Every moment that was not taken up by some task, I spent there. I had not returned to my quarters in the past two weeks.

As the third week began, there was a change. I had been on my way to the observation deck when I paused at seeing a small lump laying against the window out which I usually stared. The lump was covered in a white thermal blanket so I could not immediately identify what it was. When I caught the sight of a lack-luster blond curl, I sprang forward to pick up Maria's crumbled form. I trembled when I realized how cold she was. My heart skipped several beats before I was able to find her pulse. I tried to numb myself, but I could not achieve any sort of calm.

I held her close while bundling the thin blanket about her as tightly as possible. I ran with my full speed to her grandfather who had been trying desperately to find her since she had disappeared four hours earlier with a delusional fever. I was confined to my quarters after I had returned her and told them where I had found her.

After this episode, I was brought before a panel of scientists in chains. Professor Gerald had not been among them. I was told that they were trying to consider if I was a failed Project or not. I had indirectly put a child at risk and had allowed myself to become contaminated by the same child. As they told me this, I knew my fate would exist as one of two things. I would be terminated as a flawed Project or I would be confined as the proto-type had been. I had merely nodded. My only thought was that Maria would finally be able to live a life she should have without worrying over me.

Neither of those was to be my fate, however, because Professor Gerald had stepped in to stop the final decision from being made. He had said that this had been expected even sought after. Not Maria's sorrow or sickness, no, but the deep connection she and I had made. It was possible, he had continued, for an anthromorph and human to form a caring friendship. It was then that I learned that there were others like me on the world outside of the ARK. Professor Gerald had wanted to prove to his counterparts and superiors that a war between humans and anthromorphs (or Mobians as he named them) was not needed. I had only stood there as I absorbed this new information wondering what it would mean.

When Maria was well enough, she was told that she and I would be allowed to be friends again. She had seemed skeptical at first until I had arrived with a small collection of tiger lilies for her. She had nearly fallen out of the bed to pounce on me. I had dropped the lilies so that I could catch her before she hit the floor. She had looked so delicate at that moment. Not at all like the tenacious little tiger lily that I had first met only a short period of time before.

We grew together after that. Maria had bouts of sickness, but she always managed to smile and say I gave her a renewed strength. I grew as well although not physically which made Maria laugh and joke at my expense with a pat on my head when her height had finally reached beyond mine. Our lives fell into what appeared as normalcy to us and anyone who lived on the ARK for any amount of time. Until that changed when Professor Gerald's superiors decided that they no longer wanted to tolerate the Mobian presence on their world. Since I had been designed with an anthromorphic form, I was considered a threat as were all of Professor Gerald's other experiments.

When they descended on ARK, they had one assignment: contain any and all designated threats. I kept thinking that I should have forced Maria and Professor Gerald into the hidden crawl space. I knew that Maria would not have stayed, however. She was always concerned for me. Professor Gerald had come to see me as something more than a mere experiment as well. I guess it should not have surprised me when Maria had taken my hand and not let go, but it had surprised and worried me even at that moment. I should have known what was going to happen.

But despite all my power and promises to Professor Gerald, to Maria, I was not able to protect her when it mattered most. She was able to protect me more than I her. She had caught me off guard when she shoved me into the container. It had not been a gentle push either. I smacked into the back wall, but by the time I turned around, she sealed me into the container and was at the control panel ready to launch the pod and me to the world below. I would like to think that she had been planning to follow me, but I will never know.

A soldier had come into the launch room before she sent my pod off. His orders were to contain me at any cost and stop anyone who got in the way. I knew that he struck Maria because she had stood in his way, but I cannot forgive him. I was forced to watch the little one who had become like my sister die because she refused to betray me. I do not remember much after the sleeping gas filled the pod as I fell to the world known as Mobius. The only thing I could see was Maria's soft sorrowful eyes and her blood.

When I awoke next, Professor Gerald was standing over me, and I was strapped down to a steel table. I watched as he drew out blood from my arm and patted my head. He set the vile of blood to the side and released me before turning his back on me. I rubbed at the slight wound on my arm as I looked about the small room I was in.

It smelled and felt like an old, abandoned research lab. My eyes strayed to the professor as he bent over a table making notes on his computer. He looked so haggard, not like his usual self at all. When I jumped down to the floor, he did not even look up from his work. As I approached him, he only looked over his shoulder briefly before turning back to his work.

"You still here then, Project 1-02?"

His words had wounded me, but I remained silent. I knew that Maria must have died for Professor Gerald to be acting like he was. I stood under his elbow and looked at what he was doing. My eyes widened as I gasped. That drew his full attention and a strange smile.

"You approve then, Project 1-02?"

On the screen was a design for the destruction of the ARK and for the destruction of the world. I had not read his notes but then I did not need to as he continued.

"It is quiet ingenious isn't it, Project 1-02? My finest work yet I must say." He worked as he spoke. "You are going to be the key of course. Well," he had laughed, "not you but your clone-the real Project SHADOW." Professor Gerald turned to watch my reaction. "You can no longer be Shadow, Project 1-02. It would not do at all, not at all."

When I had found my voice, I demanded a reason for his madness, and all he would say was that Maria was dead and the world would have to pay for that death. I tried to change his mind, but he would no longer listen. I lingered as long as he allowed me, but in the end he had told me to leave or be sentenced to death delivered by his hands. Not knowing what to say or do, I left Professor Gerald and Project SHADOW behind. And for the longest while all I was able to do was wait for a death that would not come because of my design for immortality.

I had heard of Professor Gerald's death and the containment of "Project SHADOW". I had listened to the news as the war between the Mobians and humans waged around me. I began to wander at one point, not really knowing what to do. With the creation of the clone, I had been given freedom on the one place Maria and I had always dreamed of going.

I wandered, but as I did, I learned the truths of this world. It was learning these truths that spurred me into action to do as Maria had always wanted me to do and to do with me: Protect the world.

-End-


End file.
